IMO, it definitely wasn't first or second degree murder as it was a freak ricochet that accidentally struck and killed Steinle. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be negligent homicide though, it seems like he was behaving extremely recklessly* and a woman was killed as a result.

* I'm not buying his claim that the pistol fired when he accidentally stepped on it, I think his statement that he was firing at a seal is probably closest to the truth.

At least some are speculating that it was an error for the prosecutor to push for a first-degree murder charge:

Quote:

Michael Cardoza, a longtime San Francisco Bay Area lawyer said the prosecutor made a mistake by asking the jury to convict Garcia Zarate of first-degree murder despite strong evidence that the bullet ricocheted around 90 feet (27 meters) before fatally striking Steinle on July 1, 2015. Cardoza said a better case could have been made to convince jurors Garcia Zarate had a "reckless disregard for human life" and convicted him of second-degree murder.

"The prosecutor got greedy," Cardoza said. "She lost credibility when she told jurors he pointed the gun at Kate Steinle."

Of course Trump is pretending to be furious about it. In actuality, the verdict serves his political purposes perfectly, riling up his base and letting him attack and blame Democrats, Obama, San Francisco, etc.

An amended federal arrest warrant has been released for Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, a Mexican man acquitted Thursday in the killing of a woman on a San Francisco pier, a case that's sparked national debate over immigration.

The warrant says Zarate violated his supervised release on a federal sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. by possessing the gun that killed Kate Steinle on July 1, 2015.

IMO, it definitely wasn't first or second degree murder as it was a freak ricochet that accidentally struck and killed Steinle. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be negligent homicide though, it seems like he was behaving extremely recklessly* and a woman was killed as a result.

* I'm not buying his claim that the pistol fired when he accidentally stepped on it, I think his statement that he was firing at a seal is probably closest to the truth.

Remember that the verdict doesn't mean that the jury necessarily bought the accident story, just that they did not think that the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not an accident. So, the jury did not necessarily disagree with you, but thinking that it probably wasn't an accident is not enough.